Stolen mobile phones - where do they go?

[Moovart]

Another excellent article from Jim Waterson's London Centric reporting

https://www.londoncentric.media/p/kitchen-foil-and-algerian-markets?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Interesting that there seem to be favoured and repeated routes for phone snatching for particular thieves.  Seems ED might be one of them ☹️

[ianr]

Thanks very much for that.   I think the better informed we are, the better our discussions will be.

The article contained: "That arrest had quite an impact on the [phone theft] numbers for the following month,” said Green. 

Here's another indicator, admittedly a piece of police PR,  of how well-targeted police efforts, mostly invisible to us,  can when successful  seriously affect offending figures: https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-police-drive-down-theft-and-robbery-by-84-percent-in-battersea-and-nine-elms-500495.

 

Edited September 20, 2025 by ianr

[ianr]

The BBC File on 4 programme has been reporting on the phone theft industry this week.  Apparently there's a large market in Shenzhen where wiped stolen mobiles can be got for up to a few hundred pounds. 

The programme highlights a major trigger for phone thefts: immediate access, on unlocked or shoulder-surfed phones, to their loaded financial account apps and data.  Accounts can be cleaned out even before the victim has reported the theft.  Locked phones can take longer. 

Pickpocketing and distraction thefts (eg, at a table in cafe or pub with phone on table, being oddly engaged by stranger) are available as alternatives to snatches.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002jsqv

[malumbu]

They end up all over the world.  There is a part of china where there is a massive recycling industry.  I wish I could recall the article as it had percentages, the west, and South America, being pretty low as final destination.  Not sure how many get sold on in country of origin/ownership

[jazzer]

think from memory there was a programme about this, they go to China and get re-sold. A trade exists and we suffer as a result.

[CPR Dave]

These bits of the story look much more interesting:

Plus: Fake Forrest Gump-themed shrimp restaurant payout — and pub survives licence review after drinkers disrupt a child's music practice

[Angelina]

I know someone who had his phone snatched from him on the tube. It was reported found as the thief had just thrown it away as it was so old. It wasn't that old.

I've also had kids ask me the time before just so they could laugh at me with my old phone. 

Maybe we bring it on ourselves.

 

[Cancerian]

I don’t mind being seen with my old phone and I’ve worn a watch since I was 15 and automatically look at it for the time. Saw a great article in the Daily Mail a few weeks ago about how most stolen phones end up in China.